


Making My Way Down The Line

by james



Category: Hawkeye (Comics)
Genre: Deaf Clint Barton, Fluff, Gen, Humor, Kate/America (mentioned), mention of girls dating girls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:01:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27314473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/james/pseuds/james
Summary: Clint is trying to become one with his couch.  It's a long-term goal.  Kate isn't going to let him, and also there is salad.  Why is there salad.
Comments: 34
Kudos: 93
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Making My Way Down The Line

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rivulet027](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rivulet027/gifts).



Clint had never successfully become one with a couch, though not for lack of trying and definitely not for lack of his firm belief that it was possible if he just kept trying. Right at the moment he was at least fifteen minutes into his newest attempt, brought on by a lack of sleep and disappointing lack of coffee or food that was within arm's reach.

Probably something in the kitchen; he had a vague memory of Kate slamming cabinet doors and yelling about soup, nobody can ruin canned soup, Clint, you can't live on pizza and dog biscuits alone. They'd both had to stop then and look for Lucky's box of treats and give him one (each, Lucky insisted). But Clint had eventually admitted that Kate was probably right and having something easy on-hand like canned soup and those weird pasta meals to heat up in the microwave were probably a good idea.

She didn't have to know he didn't warm up the soup, just ate it right from the can. She also didn't have to know he traded the weird pasta meals to Frank, who was living in the back alley by ninth, in exchange for a copy of yesterday's newspaper.

Clint didn't really need the newspaper, but Frank hated taking shit for free, so Clint used the paper to stuff into the cracks of his windows in the winter and clean up the inevitable puppy accidents.

Besides, it wasn't like Clint only ever ate pizza. Sometimes he did get pizza from Panillo's, but other times he got tacos and chelo kebabs from Rosa, or waffle chicken sandwiches from David, or noodles from Mico. He had the menus and locations of every food truck in a five mile radius memorized, and several of the owners genuinely liked him, so he was pretty sure he wouldn't actually starve or whatever it was Kate insisted would happen if he didn't eat a vegetable now and then. _Tostones totally counts as eating fruit,_ he thought at her, wherever she was.

He had tried telling her he was secretly a mutant and didn't need vegetables, and she'd responded by shredding carrots into his coffee grounds. None of that mattered, anyhow, because he wasn't hungry enough to give up being asleep, which meant he didn't have to get up and Lucky could learn to open doors if he needed to go out.

Something banged against his foot. 

“I can't hear you, my eyes are closed,” he said, because Kate was wandering around his apartment for some reason. She'd brought Lucky back this morning when Clint had returned, coming home as soon as possible (slightly sooner, if his S.H.I.E.L.D. handlers were to be asked). She'd gone as soon as he'd proven himself to be mostly unblemished, and he'd had his shower and a nap and gotten up to come downstairs for coffee before sinking blissfully into his couch and starting the nap again.

When Kate had banged on the door and he'd made no effort to answer, nor retrieve his hearing aids. She'd let herself in and he'd kept his eyes closed because he was off-duty, and that meant as an agent, an Avenger, or a friend. She'd left him to his couch-edness for awhile, but now she was throwing rocks at his foot.

Where had she gotten rocks, anyway?

The rocks were making impacts up his foot and now up his leg, one bounced off his knee. Clint remembered how she was actually more stubborn than he was, and opened his eyes and glared at her, not trying to really wake up or get his brain going.

She wriggled her fingers at him, signing 'That you promised' and then devolving into a mess of gibberish.

He scowled. “What the fuck, Katie-Kate.”

She scowled back, and signed more gibberish at him, then threw her hands up in disgust at him and signed in gestures he knew. _You said you were learning LSM and so I've been studying and your fucking lazy ass lied to me you didn't learn it at all._

Clint blinked at her. “When did I say I was learning Mexican Sign-- wait. Uh – in my defense I would have said anything to get Nat to stop threatening to stab me.”

“ _I_ will stab you,” Kate signed. “I've been studying for weeks and waiting to practice with you and you are a dead man, Clinton Francis Barton.”

That...seemed more extreme than the situation seemed to warrant, and Clint tried to remember if maybe he'd forgotten something else. What day was it, anyway? He couldn't be faulted for missing things when S.H.I.E.L.D. sent him places that he couldn't talk about after. But he did sometimes try to remember to bring back presents.

Except, well, no, he had never remembered to bring back presents. Bobbi probably hadn't even believed him when he'd said he would, even when she was on the very same mission with him and could pick it out herself.

Clint sighed and let his head fall back against the couch, and just asked. “What did I do? Not do? Other than forget I was supposed to learn another sign language?” Why would he pick LSM, anyhow, he wondered. Arabic, sure, that might make sense, the number of times he got sent in that direction of the world. But he'd been to Mexico exactly once, and he hadn't even had to kill anyone or run for his life.

“The shooting contest!” Kate sign-yelled at him, looking extremely exasperated with him.

Finally he sort of remembered what she was talking about, but he really didn't want to drag his ass off the couch to shoot at paper targets with college kids. “Can't you just go without me? They just needed Hawkeye there, right? You're Hawkeye.” He waved at her and hoped she would let him get back to being unconscious.

She kicked his foot, a lot harder than she'd been throwing rocks at him. He looked around and saw a small pile on the window sill – ah, broken pieces of brick, then. She'd been prepared. “You have to go! You have to do it for America!”

Clint blinked. “The country or the Avenger?”

Kate made an expression that looked like she was probably screaming. “America! The person! She will be there and you have to shoot, so she can see how good I am!”

Clint knew perfectly well that he had no idea how girls, women, worked. How their brains worked, because he was pretty sure Kate didn't need him there for her to impress America with her archery. Kate was good, but he was still better than her. “Wouldn't it be more impressive if you just go and beat the pants off everyone else?”

She took two steps forward, glaring like she was prepared to hoist him over her shoulder and carry him out. “You have to go, and shoot, so she can see! If I shoot against those other kids I'll just beat them, and it'll look like I'm better than them because they suck. But if you're there, and everyone knows you're one of the worlds' greatest marksmen,” she made fingers quotes in the midst of her signs, and Clint frowned.

“ _The_ World's Greatest Marksman,” he reminded her. The, not one of.

Kate rolled her eyes. “One of the world's greatest markspeople, and if you're shooting targets along with me, then she can see just how good I really am.”

“Am I supposed to let you win?” Clint wasn't sure he could; even if he tried to miss a couple of shots his reflexes always took over.

She threw up her hands like _Clint_ was being the unreasonable one. “No! But I'm good enough she'll be able to tell how good I am compared to you.”

Clint thought that this almost made sense. “Then she'll be impressed enough to kiss you?” He'd seen enough movies to guess how that part was supposed to go.

Kate waved her hand, dismissively. “We've already kissed, and fucked. If I impress her she'll let me take her to dinner!”

He let that roll around in his head for a moment. No, he still absolutely did not understand how women worked. What he did know, however, was that he was not going to get to spend the rest of the day becoming part of his couch, and begging Lucky to go down and fetch him some kebabs.

Lucky would go down and get some, no problem, but he always ate them instead of bringing Clint back any, even when he called and asked Rosa to put some in a baggy for him.

Traitor. _Traitors,_ both of them. Not that he would say that to Rosa's face if he ever wanted kebabs again.

“Fine,” he said, sighing. He wrinkled his nose. “I probably have to shower.” 

“Shower, wear clean clothes, look like a human being and not a total disaster,” Kate listed off with practiced ease. She was still trying to compact that phrase into his name-sign, which Clint couldn't decide whether to be offended by or proud of.

“And you're going to get me some food while I do,” Clint added.

He realized his mistake when Kate smiled, innocently. “You said you wanted a large salad? Absolutely, coming right up!” She grabbed Lucky's leash, probably so Clint couldn't try to use him to get kebabs.

As Lucky hauled Kate out the door, Clint wondered if he could get away with faking an emergency. Except last time he'd tried, Captain American had responded, then spent the next three weeks giving Clint very disappointed looks, and suggesting that Clint needed some additional team training, which had somehow involved mostly calisthenics with a supersoldier.

He never wanted to do a jumping jack again in his entire life. Or the next one.

Resigned to his couchless future, Clint headed for the bathroom.

He realized his mistake when he finished the shower and discovered he'd forgotten to grab a towel, or clean clothes, and emerged to find Kate sitting on his couch eating from a huge styrofoam container of nachos. Lucky was downing a slice of pepperoni pizza. She raised an eyebrow and gestured at the kitchen.

“Your salad, in the kitchen. Also, you don't get extra points for shooting naked.”

He wanted to respond, but mostly he wanted to go back to this morning and start over, mostly by not getting on the Quinjet back to New York in the first place. He went upstairs to get dressed in clothes he knew for a fact were almost entirely possibly clean and came downstairs to find a large salad waiting for him. He started picking out the tiny tomatoes and eating them. 

Maybe Lucky liked lettuce.


End file.
